"The Fierce Beauty" artist at the Macnas parade for the Galway Arts Festival

Junk drummers, make-up mystics and animal artists brought electricity to the streets of Galway with the Macnas parade at the Galway Arts Festival. This year's parade, entitled "The Fierce Beauty" was a massive success as the GAFTV video shows below.

Artistic director, Noeline Kavanagh, is the conductor of this band of junk drummers, punk cabaret artists, inventors, philosophers, mystics and enigmatic animals. She explained "The theme of the parade is basically invention and what is underscoring it is an energy around transformation and invigoration", she told the Irish Independent.

This annual parade is one of the highlights of the Galway Arts Festival which runs until July 24th.

Macnas the spectacular Galway performance group has been operating out of Galway for over 23 years. Their performances are created by the community for the community and they are the centerpiece of every year's Galway Arts Festival.

This world renowned group begins each project with a simple idea which eventually grows to a spectacular event including about 100 people. Their mission statement which they regularly fulfill is to engage a collective creativity that is exhausting, exhilarating and empowering.